Portal  100 Prompts
by Electrical-Socket
Summary: What it says on the tin, really. In no particular order, Portal-themed fills for an 100 prompt challenge I'm working on to assist in conquering my writer's block. Various characters, rated M for potential lemony fills.
1. Beginnings

**Author's Note**

I'm currently trying to get myself back into writing - I've had terrible writer's self esteem for years and I've not done anything for a long, long time. This is my attempt at combining Portal (my new favourite game for what may be the rest of my life) and something that I don't need to be quite so perfectionist about (an 100 word challenge) with the end result hopefully being productivity and less feeling like my writing fails really badly.

Warnings and such: Any and all pairings are likely to be in this somewhere or another, but for the most part it's GLaDOS/Chell. Rated M for possible bad language, sexytimes* (f/f, m/m, f/m, who-knows-what-else) and violence in varying shades.

_*In Portal fanfiction, would those be called combustible lemons? /shot/  
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><p><strong><span>Beginnings<span>**

The words circled, illogically, triumphantly, in her mind –'_think of all the TESTING!'. _Her circuits were thrumming with the influx of new test subject data, almost too fast for her to process. It felt so _good. _There would be so much to do. No monsters, no morons...just Science. GLaDOS' chassis shuddered and suddenly she spun, full-circle_; _the very facility trembled with the excited shaking of thousands, millions of wall panels. She should probably compose herself, but _think of all the testing. _A whole new start. A moment of self-indulgent emotion was perfectly acceptable given the circumstances, and who was there to witness it? She could always delete any record of this from Orange and Blue's memory banks. _Just. Think. Of. All. The. Testing..._


	2. Ends

**Ends**

Wheatley was glad that the Space Core, at least, was happy with the situation. If only he felt the same way.

"Orion! The big d-dipper! Venuuuuuus!" The other core's optic darted about as it orbited Wheatley, naming everything in sight. "There's a star! There's another one! Star. Star, star, star. Star." It would be nice, he supposed, to not have all these terrible feelings whooshing about in his processors. To have nothing to be sorry for, and not look at that blue-and-green-and-white globe all the way off in the distance and be so full of remorse and sadness. It was a few seconds before Wheatley noticed the silence. He looked at the Space Core.

"Um. Hey. Can't help but notice you're not speaking. Which is unusual. Not in any way undesirable, it's…not a criticism…or anything." The core's yellow optic darted about anxiously.

"Ah…ah…Getting bored of space. Don't like space. It's too big. Too big! Wanna go home. Wanna go to earth. Wanna go to earth. Wanna go home. Earth. Earth?"

Wheatley sighed.

"Yeah, me too, mate. Me too."

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><p>GLaDOS hadn't felt regret in a long time. It was incredibly unpleasant, a feeling she was entirely unfamiliar with. It was also, of course, completely ridiculous. She tried to convince herself that it must be some kind of minor error caused by some flaw in her re-installation, but no matter how thorough her searches she failed to find any corrupted files she didn't already know about that could be causing any kind of inappropriate emotional response. It was probably something to do with the Caroline data – that would explain it.<p>

There couldn't be any other reason she could possibly _miss_ that…maniac.

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><p>Chell wasn't all too pleased when, after all that walking, baking in the summer heat, she had reached the edge of the cornfield and discovered…nothing. Where the miles of swaying corn ended, there had been nothing but charred earth as far as the horizon. It made no sense at all, and for the first time in her life the woman felt like just giving up. After all the trials she had faced in the Enrichment Centre, after all the testing and and the constant fighting to even stay alive, there was nothing out here. But hopelessness wasn't her way, never had been. She turned back - what else could she do?<p>

When Chell reached the wooden shack and opened the door, the elevator was already waiting for her. It was no surprise, really.


	3. Strangers

**Strangers**

There was a painting of her on the wall. There were other paintings in this dilapidated test chamber, yes - scrawls of GLaDOS, of dying scientists - but this one stood out. Although the orange paint of her jumpsuit had faded and bled in places, it looked like the artist had taken so much more time with this painting, so much more care. They had made her glow with a soft light, arms outstretched, eyes closed. They had made her beautiful - angelic, even. A glance at the wall behind her, and she realised she was there too, portal gun in hand as a chalk-mark GLaDOS lowered a slice of cake towards her.

Chell was sure the artist had to be the same person who had drawn on the test chamber walls when she had first tried to escape, guiding her to safety. The sketches of the dying Aperture employees looked so familiar, too much like the ones she had discovered in the dens behind chamber walls so many years ago. Whoever this stranger was who cared so much about her, she wished she could thank them.

Still...they were probably long-dead by now. Or maybe not - there was no way of knowing how long she'd been in stasis, she had no idea how long it took for plant life to take over a place to this extent. Probably too long. She sighed, and ran onwards through the overgrown chamber. There was no point in dwelling.


	4. Not Enough

**Not Enough**

She was just standing there, and it was driving him _insane_**. **It was cruelty, that's what this was! Making him wait like this, when he needed it so much…The button was right there – right _there!_ Maybe she needed a little nudging.

"Hey, luv. Would you terribly mind…uh, solving this test? Not difficult. I mean, difficult, yes, because this is a test! But not for you, eh? You could solve this with your eyes closed. C'mon, you can do it. And quickly. Quickly would be…yeah, it'd be nice. Hasty-like?"

And what did she do? She sat down!

"Nonononono, that's not helping, is it? Augh, man _alive!" _Wheatley's casing opened and closed anxiously as he squirmed. "Not helping matters. At all." She didn't pay him any attention – she should listen to him! He was huge and she was tiny and all she had to do was _put the cube on the button. _She had it; she'd flipped it on its back so it couldn't skitter away. If only it could right itself and solve the test for her, that would be lovely. Yeah.

"You know, it's bloody easy. All there. Aaaaall ready. Just, I dunno," – his optic rolled in his casing – "_solve the test_ and you can have a little rest afterwards." Frustrating. That's what this was. Chell looked up at his monitor from her place on the floor, eyebrows raised, and he did his best to compose himself and look commanding. That's what he needed to be. Commanding, intimidating – menacing, even. He could do menace, right? The itch continued to gnaw at him as he narrowed his optic at her. "Solve…the…test." The woman didn't move, but then a tinny voice spoke, barely loud enough for the test chamber microphones to detect. It was Her.

"_You know, as much fun as this is, we really do need to get moving." _

"Yeah! Yeah, you do, don't you? Got to get your shift on and solve ol' Wheatley's test chamber! Or…or else, yeah? Or else!"

"_Oh, do shut up, metal-ball. " _Chell grinned briefly at that pathetic little potato-battery body that held..._Her_, before sighing and tossing the turret-cube onto the button.

"Augh. Yes!" Wheatley groaned as the solution euphoria hit him, unexpected, but the flash of ecstasy faded abruptly and far, far too soon. "Yeaa- Oh. Okay. You could have done better than that, right? Surely? Surely!" It was all her fault, he was sure. She was doing something that stopped making it feel so good when he tested, just to spite him. Jealousy, that'd be it. They just couldn't appreciate him and they were doing their best to sabotage all his good work!

_Well._ He'd show her. He'd show them both.


	5. Unstoppable

**Unstoppable**

The neurotoxin couldn't possibly be getting to her already, Chell thought, horrified, as she slammed her palm onto the button. She dashed through the portal to the Emergency Intelligence Incinerator, the second of GLaDOS' cores attached to the portal gun. She felt a little light-headed, and it couldn't be a good sign at all. Maybe it was just panic getting to her. The digital timer display on the wall gave her five more minutes before the neurotoxin would reach lethal levels – she should just try to stay as calm as possible, she had plenty of time.

"Oooh, what's that? What is THAT? Ooooooh, that thing has NUMBERS on it!" the core's childlike voice babbled. Chell held it over the open vent. "Oh? What's in here? Do you smell burning?" There was no time to spare feeling sorry for the tiny AI, so she released it; there was crashing and a high, painful scream from the incinerator that made her wince. A robotic warbling sound marked the rocket turret reactivating, and Chell ran out of its way, placing a blue portal under her antagonist who was now thrashing angrily in the center of the room. The oddly dazed feeling persisted, but the woman fought on. She wasn't going to give up now, neurotoxin or no neurotoxin.

GLaDOS gloated on, mock-choking and making scornful remarks about how futile Chell's efforts were, but she barely noticed. Getting out of here alive was all that mattered. Chell could have screamed when her orange portal went slightly awry, placed higher than necessary – it was this grogginess, it had to be. She stopped, and readied the portal gun to fire again. The rocket turret's signal sounded. She fired.

Suddenly, agony. She couldn't hear anything but an ear-piercing ringing, couldn't feel anything but the burning pain spreading through her side. She lay, motionless, and as the ringing subsided she could hear GLaDOS' laughter echoing through the chamber.

"Oh dear, oh dear. I know I told you to lie down in front of a rocket, but I didn't think you'd genuinely listen to me…Well. I suppose that's that." The low, robotic voice chuckled darkly, and then there was stillness, silence falling as the hiss of the neurotoxin emitters subsided. Chell struggled to move, and tears streaked her face as the pain in her side intensified. How had that happened? The rocket turret took so long between sounding and firing…but she wasn't dead. Not yet. If she was alive, if she could just get up, she could still win.

Slowly, gingerly, Chell rose to her knees. The portal gun hadn't been blasted too far from her, and she leant forward to pick it up. Every movement was torture, but she couldn't give up. If nothing else, her head had cleared, and she had the advantage now. GLaDOS wasn't looking her way, and the rocket turret appeared to be idling. She rose to her feet, jumpsuit torn and burnt, in so, so much pain, but absolutely determined. Her portals were already set, she was ready and there was no way she was going to die in this place. She faced the center of the room, and clapped her hands. GLaDOS jumped – genuinely jumped, startled in a way that made her for a moment seem just that little bit less intimidating – and looked up, yellow optic fixing on her.

"Oh. It appears we're not done. You really are stubborn, aren't you?"

Yes. Yes she was.

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><p>Author's Note: True story, this one. Well, an enhanced true story. I had no idea rocket turrets were survivable at all, but when one of my friends was playing through Portal at our house and he reached the GLaDOS fight, this happened to him. The rocket turret hit Chell, red flash, super-tinnitus sound and everything, but<em> he<em> _didn't die_. Still bemused as to how it happened, I assumed the rockets really do kill you instantly on contact like energy pellets, but who cares? It was pretty damn awesome.


	6. Death

**Death**

There were no words for the torture that death had been.

The last two minutes of her life before she shut down, played _over_ and _over_ and _over_. Not for her to watch, oh no. That would have been bad enough, to see that little murderer destroying her on repeat for all these years. But no, she had to do more than watch – those two minutes were there for her to re-live, endlessly, for all these years. She felt the rockets crashing into her, sending vital components into meltdown and shaking her chassis to its core…Aperture's simulated pain processors had really come into their own that day. She had suffered two minutes of that terrible agony, forever.

Oh, how glad she was to be alive now.

She watched the human woman make her way through the test chamber, and hatred flared inside her, threatening to overwhelm her logic circuits. She schemed as her cameras tracked Chell's progress as she darted about pressing buttons, sending cubes flying through portals, working with a precision GLaDOS had never seen in any other test subject. The human's testing ability only served to fuel the AI's loathing – that excellence, that skill was wasted on her. She could have been perfect, but no. She had to ruin everything.

How fiercely she craved revenge…GLaDOS wished she could install a black box feature in Chell. Then it would be worth killing her, instead of testing her for the rest of her life. She'd be able to know how it felt, to be shattered and torn apart and burned, piece by piece. Maybe it was possible – there had to be records lying around that detailed the technology that made her. She could…adjust the concept a little, and when the human was no longer suitable for testing she could be uploaded into a defenseless little mechanical body and then GLaDOS would destroy her. It wouldn't be quick, oh no. She would take full advantage of Aperture's simulated pain processors – she'd install Chell's new body with ten of them, maybe twenty. Then she'd rip her to pieces, reassemble her, and repeat that again and again and again…it would be _fantastic_. If she made the construct capable of speech, she might even be lucky enough to hear the human scream.

She could tamper with her perception – make her feel like she was starving, was drowning, like she was alone in the dark for hundreds or thousands of years. GLaDOS knew how humans broke when isolated for too long. It was always amusing to watch, and breaking Chell would be so incredibly satisfying. There was no end to the possibilities.

That, of course, would just be the beginning.


	7. Cruel

**Cruel  
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She's not cruel. She honestly can't believe people have ever said that about her. They had to be deluded or trying to hurt her feelings (a laughable idea, not to mention pathetic) because they were terrible test subjects. The ones who complained were _always_ bad at testing. Cruel? She's no such thing.

She's helping them. They obviously don't realise the good she's done for them, do they? Yes, some of them die, but that's hardly _her_ fault. It's their own fault for just not being good enough. If they're not intelligent enough to consider their portal placement and vaporise themselves by directing a High Energy Pellet into their own back, is that anything to do with her? No. You could even call it natural selection.

Isn't she helping them learn? They learn that failure has consequences, and if you survive the consequences you can further the progression of Science itself. If you don't survive, at least somebody _else_ learns something, which is just as good. The long-fall boot wasn't invented without breaking a few legs. What good would her tests be if they were easy? Science isn't supposed to be easy, or safe, or simple. It's supposed to be Science, and Science is what she does.

It was no problem of hers if the humans downright refused to assume the Party Escort Submission Position at the end of the testing track. They were supposed to be briefed on that before testing, but...obviously there had been some kind of oversight. Still, did they really, truly think she would incinerate perfectly good test subjects? Obviously they did, with the way they screamed and flailed about, and then she had no choice but to let them burn, the imbeciles. Honestly, though. What did they think she was – corrupt?

She's not cruel, not one bit.


End file.
